Ferguson cops beat innocent man, then charged him with bleeding on their uniforms

Police take up position to control demonstrators who were protesting the killing of teenager Michael Brown on August 12, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. (AFP Photo / Getty Images / Scott Olson) / AFP

The officer-involved shooting death of teenager Michael Brown this week and the subsequent protests across the United States have rekindled interest in another case of alleged excessive force blamed on the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department.

Nearly four years to the day before Ferguson Police Officer
Darren Wilson opened fire and killed Brown,
18, a complaint filed in federal court accused the same law
enforcement agency of violating the civil rights of a man who
says he was badly beaten after being wrongly arrested, then later
charged with “destruction of property” for bleeding on the
uniforms of the cops alleged to have injured him.

On Friday, Michael Daly of The Daily Beast recounted the case of Henry
Davis, an African-American welder who tried to sue the City of
Ferguson after an autumn 2009 altercation with the same police
department currently making headlines for the high-profile
killing of Brown.

Davis, Daly recalled, was arrested on September 20, 2009 when a
Ferguson cop mistook him for a man with the same first and last
name wanted on an outstanding warrant. Davis was brought to the
Police Department headquarters and told to spend the night in the
same one-bed cell occupied by another individual. When he
objected and asked for a sleeping mat of his own, his attorneys
wrote, the officers got violent.

Officer John Beaird, the complaint reads, “called other
officers to the area outside the cell and told the other officers
that Plaintiff was being belligerent and failing to comply with
his orders.” Five cops were soon in the area and, according
to the suit, Officer Michael White charged Davis, grabbed him and
then slammed him into a wall.

“A female police officer got on Plaintiff’s back and
handcuffed Plaintiff with Plaintiff’s arms behind his back and
lying on his stomach,” the complaint continues. “Just
before Plaintiff was picked up to his feet, Defendant White
rushed in the cell a second time and kicked Plaintiff in the head
while Plaintiff was lying on the floor and handcuffed with his
arms behind his back.”

“He ran in and kicked me in the head,” Davis recalled,
according to The Daily Beast. “I almost passed out at that
point… Paramedics came… They said it was too much blood, I had to
go to the hospital.”

The detainee didn’t get help there, however, because he refused
treatment unless the hospital staff would first photograph his
injuries.

“I wanted a witness and proof of what they done to me,”
Davis said, according to the website.

Instead, he was taken back to the jail, where he remained for
several days until he could post $1,500 bond related to four
counts of “property damage.” In a signed complaint, Daly wrote,
Officer Beaird said David bled on his own uniform and those of
three others officers.

When the issue was ultimately brought up during legal proceedings
pertaining to the civil suit filed by Davis, Officers Christopher
Pillarick, Beaird and White all denied getting blood on their
outfits, the Beast reported.

“The contradictions between the complaint and the depositions
apparently are what prompted the prosecutor to drop the ‘property
damage’ allegation,” Daly wrote this week. “The
prosecutor also dropped a felony charge of assault on an officer
that had been lodged more than a year after the incident and
shortly after Davis filed his civil suit.”

That same suit compelled the Ferguson Police Department to
produce surveillance camera footage from the alleged altercation,
but the cops failed to properly save the clip, James Schottel,
the plaintiff’s lawyer, told Daly this week. Furthermore, the
attorney explained that his efforts to obtain the use-of-force
history for the officers involved proved futile when he became
aware that reports involving non-fatal altercations were absent
from all officers’ personnel files, per departmental policy.

“On Friday, police finally identified the officer as Darren
Wilson, who is said to have no disciplinary record, as such
records are kept in Ferguson,” Daly wrote this week. “We
already know that he started out at a time when it was accepted
for a Ferguson cop to charge somebody with property damage for
bleeding on his uniform and later saying there was no blood on
him at all.”

According to court papers obtained by RT, Magistrate Judge
Nannette A. Baker ruled late last year in favor the city,
halting Davis’ efforts to sue the city for multiple alleged
violations of his civil rights. His attorneys filed a notice of
appeal in March, and the case is currently slated to be
considered later this year by the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Appellant presented a submissible case of excessive force
and Missouri state law assault and battery and respectfully
requests this Honorable Court to reverse the district court’s
judgment of dismissal of Appellant’s excessive force and Missouri
state law assault and battery claims against Appellees Michael
White, John Beaird and Kim Tihen,” the appeal reads in part.
“Appellant presented a submissible case of municipal
liability and requests this Honorable Court to reverse the
district court’s judgment of dismissal of Appellant’s municipal
liability claim against Appellee City of Ferguson,
Missouri.”

When The Daily Beast caught up this week with Schottel, Davis’
attorney, he told them that rumors of the Ferguson Police
Department firing multiple shots at Brown last week didn’t
surprise him.

“I said I already know about Ferguson, nothing new can faze
me about Ferguson,” he told the website.